Chris Lombardi puts defense and security under the spotlight, as he shares his takes on recent NATO and EU cooperation and provides insight into the company’s own long-term strategic partnerships in Europe.

Three trends are currently driving the global electricity sector: decarbonization, decentralization and differentiation. Utilities are making significant contributions to mitigate carbon emissions, while a technology revolution is …

Boko Haram shakes Nigeria

The worst massacre yet committed by Islamist rebels in Nigeria is adding to the challenges facing the country’s authorities as they prepare for elections next month. It is also worsening the headaches for European policymakers as they try to help counter Islamist threats in Africa.

A massacre of hundreds of civilians – possibly as many as 2,000 – on 3-7 January by the Islamist group Boko Haram has forced thousands from their homes, adding to the 1.5 million Nigerians that the European Commission estimated had already been displaced over several years of violence.

More than 200,000 are now believed to be in three neighbouring countries that face their own security challenges. One, Niger, is host to an EU security mission; another, Cameroon, is a major destination for refugees from the Central African Republic; and fighting in the third – Chad – led to the deployment of EU peacekeepers in 2008-09.

Nicholas Westcott, the head of the Africa department in the EU’s diplomatic service, has said that the EU is currently providing food, water and medical help to refugees within and beyond Nigeria’s borders, but said that the conflict had disrupted aid even to neighbouring provinces not directly affected by the fighting.

The EU’s aid and development effort in Nigeria, which is budgeted to total €512 million for 2014-20, is concentrated in the north. However, officials acknowledge that money is not the major problem hampering development in a country that supplied 8.2% of the EU’s imports of crude oil in 2012. Diplomats and officials identify mismanagement and poor communication as problems both in developing the country’s economy – already Africa’s largest – and in improving its security forces.

Much of Europe’s effort to strengthen Nigeria’s security sector is provided by the EU’s member states, but a relatively new EU programme, worth €10m, is focused on security in the north. The EU is also providing some support for the work of Nigeria’s national security adviser, though details are limited.

Calls for a more concerted effort at the EU level meant that diplomats considered putting Nigeria’s security situation on the agenda of EU foreign ministers when they met on Monday (19 January). Germany has already signalled that it would back an emerging initiative by the west African regional grouping Ecowas to form a regional force to counter Boko Haram, which has historically been based in Nigeria.

For the time being, the EU’s immediate political focus is on presidential, parliamentary and state-level elections on 14 and 28 February. The presidential election pits a candidate from the Muslim north against the incumbent, Goodluck Jonathan, from the oil-rich, largely Christian south. An estimated 800 people lost their lives in elections in 2011, and a range of localised incidents of violence in recent months have been attributed to the elections.

The elections have been a priority for the EU in Nigeria for the past year, with concerns that the logistical challenge of organising elections in a country of 178 million people could be compounded by the introduction of electronic voting.

The EU has sent a long-term observation mission of 39 people – led by Santiago Fisas, a Spanish conservative MEP – but they will not be deployed in three conflict-hit states in the north-east. An official said the EU was concentrating on areas where fears of rigging are high. The European Parliament is currently finalising the composition of its seven-member delegation, which will spend several days in Nigeria for the 14 February polls.